FRUITS AND SEEDS 141 



12. Plants in pots and " cuttings " are brought to 

 Australia from all parts of the world. In the 

 Melbourne Botanic Gardens you may see a great 

 weeping-willow that was grown from a "cutting" taken 

 from the tree that grows over the grave of Napoleon 

 at St. Helena. And so it has come to pass that our 

 gardens are made beautiful by the finest trees and 

 flowers of many countries. God did not mean the 

 rose of Persia to be kept in one land only; and so 

 the rose of Persia is to-day in many lands. So is 

 it with all that is good in flower and fruit. 



Questions and Exercises: — 



(1) Give the colours of all the berries you have noticed. What 

 colours are the most common ? 



(2) Can you name any birds that eat (a) the pink berries of the 

 pepper- tree (b) the red berries of the Cape thorn hedge ? 



(3) Look with lens at the calyx of the plumbago flower at 

 various stages of ripeness, and tell what you see. 



(4) Find the large, tall summer weed with strong branching red 

 stems and reddish-green tiny flowers. Shake a ripe spike over 

 white paper, and look at the many little seeds, shiny and black 

 like the body of a garden ant. 



(5) Find a ripe spike of the broad-leaved plantain. Count the 

 seeds in one of the little egg-shaped pods Count the pods on 

 the spike, and the spikes on the plant, and reckon up the total 

 number of seeds. 



(6) Over a million seeds may be produced by one large weed 

 What becomes of them ? 



(7) Some seeds resemble insects, and may possibly be carried off 

 by insect-eating birds. Examine the seed of the castor-oil plant, 

 (a) with the sheath on (b) when stripped of its sheath. 



(8) In what way do the seeds of the following plants travel : — 

 burr-medick (yellow clover), forget-me-not, pittosporum (Vic- 

 torian laurel), carrot? 



(9) No roads in Australia have so many weeds as the travelling 

 stock routes. Explain 



